[Bugga62]

I saw a video (that I did not bother to watch the entire thing)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=L13Ct40cFIU

I could already tell that it was nothing but a biased, uninfomred report... I did not bother to watch the thing (though I plan on doing it, and face the horror.)

[ThatGuy]

I love how they have the guy arguing for Mass Effect on for about a minute and then they just have a bunch of people all sit around and talk about how evil video games are. Whatever happened to constructive debate?

[Sidstyler]

Did you hear "I have not played the game" repeated at least three times?

Yeah. She says this AFTER she just went on this big thing about the supposed digital nudity depicting women as objects of desire, and making assumptions about the game she hasn't played. She pretty much told the entire world she has no idea what the hell she's talking about. Case closed.

Now not only do we have to listen to "video games will turn you into a violent killer", but a "sexist pervert/serial rapist" as well.

And how exactly does nudity damage a child's development? Violence I can understand (somewhat), but nudity and sex? Surely your child sees itself naked every day of it's life, isn't this just as likely to damage him/her?

Originally Posted by ThatGuy

I love how they have the guy arguing for Mass Effect on for about a minute and then they just have a bunch of people all sit around and talk about how evil video games are. Whatever happened to constructive debate?

It's Fox News.

[Praying Mantidae]

Leave it to FOX to "unveil the horrors" of popular things. :

OH MY GOD, ITS RATED "M" FOR A REASON, YOU STUPID PRICKS. That Cooper woman pisses me off. "Oh yeah, cause the kids are going to choose the clean storyline" OF COURSE THEY'RE NOT. THEY'RE FRIGGIN' TEENAGERS. THEY'RE DRIVEN BY THEIR FRIGGIN HORMONES! Once they find out there's "Alien Bewbz" they're going to do all they can to GET THEM. Thank Odin she didn't have a chance to make any other asinine comments.

Holy shit, are these people so out of touch with today's kids? Do they really think all their attempts to "protect" them from life itself is really working? Most kids by age 12 have seen some sort of nudity.



Holy shit I hate FOX. The only intelligent thing that came out of that video, besides what Geoff Keighly said, was: "It's up to parents to control what their kids are seeing".

Of course, then the stupid blonde had to go and say "Yeah, unfortunately". Holy christ, if you can't take the time out of your friggin day to keep track of your kids, there's something wrong. Nobody else has the obligation to do it for you, lady!


*takes a deep breath*
Right, I know we're going to have some pretty hot responses here (hell, I just wrote a pretty hot response). Just keep the swearing to a minimum.

[Sidstyler]

Originally Posted by The All-father

Of course, then the stupid blonde had to go and say "Yeah, unfortunately". Holy christ, if you can't take the time out of your friggin day to keep track of your kids, there's something wrong. Nobody else has the obligation to do it for you, lady!

Oh god, I didn't even hear that part...what the hell. :

[crazedmongoose2003]

Holy crap, I mean I saw Mass Effect played and then I played it for a bit myself and it was really fun and all that and we were all responsible adults but I never realized this is so evil. After Fox News reported this I without hesitation threw out everything related to videogames in my house and am hereby informing you all that I will be quitting the internet as of a week from now. I cannot possibly survive in this modern filthy world of information and I'll be living as an amish from now kthx ttyl lol.

[knightperson]

The grain of truth here (admittedly a small one) is that the video game rating system we have sucks. It's only a good idea in theory to say that kids under <insert age here> shouldn't play M-rated games, but have you looked on the shelves recently? Most of what's there is M-rated, and there is a HUGE range of "adultness" within that. The M category covers everything from Halo 2 (which is violent, has about 2 choice words in it, but is otherwise pretty benign) to Saints Row (which is a Grand Theft Auto copy, and seems to include all the unpleasantness of GTA except nobody's found a blatantly sexual "easter egg" in it.) The checkbox list (violence, adult language, drug / alcohol abuse, and whatever the other categories are) that you find underneath the letter rating isn't much help either, with the possible exception of when you see all of them. One of the Bards Tale series got tagged with the drug / alcohol abuse flag because you could buy ale at the taverns or some such. The sex listing could mean anything from the aforementioned GTA Hot Coffee mod down to "the down-on-his-luck hero's girlfriend kicks him out or gets killed." The adult language could appear when he finds her body. All quite reasonable.

While it's feasible, if inconvenient, to see a movie before letting a child see it that doesn't work with video games. Who has time to spend the 20 hours or so required to play the game first? Even if you that were possible, video games are so non-linear you could miss all kinds of things. Your experience with the game could be very different from the next guy's. Also, once you crack the seal on the game you can't return it. If it doesn't make it through your censorship pass you've just wasted $30 or so. (I'm considering the possibility of reselling it as a used game in that calculation.) The best solution I've come up with is this: when my son, who's now 14, gets a game, I research it first. We'll bring it home from the store, but nobody cracks the seal until I browse some reviews of said game on the 'Net. Even then, some stuff that I would have preferred not to approve slips through, with some of the worst language in a T rated game. I haven't found a reliable, unbiased rating site that gives any hints to the "adultness content" of a game. For those cases, plan B is to make it clear to my son that he can play the game, but at the first sign of any of the game's antisocial behavior (even language) bleeding into reality the games goes away. So far, I haven't had to play that card.

Video games are violent, and there's nothing wrong with this. I would prefer people with the urge to do something violent do it to a bunch of pixels on the screen rather than a random person. Or a specific person: who hasn't pictured their boss / girlfriend / coworker / elected official / etc in place of the video game's antagonist at least once? I think play-acting the violence is normal (and possibly even necessary for normal development) in a society where the "Fight or Flight" instincts that a few million years of evolution have given us becomes unnecessary. It's a more modern version of Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians that kids have been playing about as long as there have been kids. It's only when people have trouble telling their fantasy from reality that things become a problem. Warhammer 40k is a simulation of violence too, but I haven't tried to build a Crisis Suit in my basement. (although if I could figure out how.....)

And whose brilliant idea was it to make the age ranges of M (17 and up) and AO (18 and up) one year apart? That's so nonsensical the AO rating might as well not exist, and it basically doesn't. A Mature child, who can play adult-oriented content without being negatively effected by it, for recreation purposes might as well be considered an Adult. I think the AO category was intended for interactive porn, which if it exists, you can't get it at the mall anyway. I wish our society would realize that sex is not the one and only thing that separates adult from child. The only games I know of that have earned an AO rating are GTA, which it only did after somebody discovered Hot Coffee, and Oblivion (unsure about that one), which happened when somebody figured out how to make girls topless. My opinion (already pretty low) of GTA didn't change when this was revealed, and the Oblivion bit was clearly a hack the developers hadn't intended and was only possible on a PC. I think the console version got pulled too because nobody understood that. I'm often reminded of a quote from an Australian newspaper (wish I could cite it properly) while the US was working on impeaching our president for consensual if inappropriate sexual favors: "Thank God we got the criminals and THEY got the puritans!"

[Wargamer]

Wow, I have learned so much from this video.

Aside from the fact that Americans make shit parents, don't supervise their kids and still think that Hopscotch is the biggest thing in the playground, I've also learned that it's okay to make shit up about something you don't like without ever having to do even the most basic research! Thank you, Fox News, you've just legallised being a bigotted twat!

[icer190]

So a James Bond Esc sex scene automatically denotes AO? So all the James Bond movies should be rated 'R' then? Alrighty? Get right on that!

Dumb asses.

Originally Posted by Wargamer

Wow, I have learned so much from this video.

Aside from the fact that Americans make Shtlk parents, don't supervise their kids and still think that Hopscotch is the biggest thing in the playground, I've also learned that it's okay to make Shtlk up about something you don't like without ever having to do even the most basic research! Thank you, Fox News, you've just legallised being a bigotted Fa'ta'kn!

Its not Americans as a whole, its idiotic over protective parents that dont know what the hell their doing. My parents are fine so long as I dont do anything illegal, or get in trouble. Other than the few rules we have around here. And I have turned out fine. It is the people on the East and West coasts(altho they are the majority of the population) that screw things up for the rest of us!

[Spiritbw]

Gee, wonder where they were when they released Vampire: Bloodlines. You think Mass effect is bad for adult content.......